A checkpoint officer advances with a shock baton while a armed buyer angles around the depot threshold, weapon raised. Their formation squeezes Jostan against the cargo scanner.
Checkpoint Officer 1
Hands where I can see them. Step away from the depot and submit to restraint.
Before either guard can close, the cargo system floods Jostan with scanning light. His cybernetics answer in layered tones, forcing a red identity record across the depot glass.
The Cargo System
Helix Meridian employee identity confirmed. Subject: deceased. Archive authorization remains active.
Armed Buyer 1
That record says dead. Why is his implant answering the archive?
Both weapons hesitate by a fraction. A maintenance display crackles above the loading lane, showing a small youthful woman with pale skin and close-cropped black hair threaded with electric-blue strips.
Avasma
I can suppress the alert, but only while I investigate why your implant signature is present in that archive. Do not move yet.
✓ Quest Accepted
Get past the guards
✓ Quest Accepted
Retrieve the authentication shard
“can the eye of anylasis help me get outta here with the shard?”
NO (Likely, rolled 92)
The eye of anylasis answers through the implant’s diagnostic layer, tracing the shard’s permissions against Jostan’s body. The result settles into a hard negative: it cannot open a path out.
Avasma
No. The eye can read the shard’s relation to your implant, but it cannot falsify the archive, disable the guards, or carry you beyond this lane.
A faint diagnostic ring closes around the shard’s authorization. It identifies the object as leverage and evidence, not an escape key; its active permissions remain tied to Helix Meridian’s dead employee record.
The Cargo System
Archive authorization active. External release authority denied. Transfer custody remains unresolved.
Armed Buyer 1
Then the shard is still valuable. Keep him breathing and make the display tell us who owns that corpse-record.
Checkpoint Officer 1
No negotiations in the loading lane. Step away from the archive and submit to restraint.
Avasma
The eye cannot get you out, Jostan. It can only prove that everyone here wants the same piece of information for different prices.
“Your to pretty to be working here I tell the the woman on the display, maybe when you guys are doing touching me I can take you on a date, I see a opening and can easliy kill the guards with my jimmy revolver”
SUCCESS (Legendary Persuasion, rolled +2)
Jostan Ordomo
You are too pretty to be working here. Maybe while you and your friends are touching me, I take you on a date. I see an opening, and I can easily kill these guards with my Jimmy.
The woman’s blue-threaded hair catches the display’s static as her expression shifts from calculation to reluctant amusement. The guards hear the boast, and both weapons rise again.
Avasma
That is an aggressively confident first date proposal. I accept the possibility, Jostan. Keep your hands visible, and I will make your opening real.
The woman on the maintenance display cuts the loading lane’s targeting feed for three seconds. The checkpoint officers’ visors blink into manual mode, while the armed buyers lose their shared aim and glance toward the failing display.
Armed Buyer 1
He is armed. Do not let the display woman dictate the room.
Avasma
There. You have your opening. I am suppressing the automated response, not choosing your target. Impress me without making this expensive.
For three clean seconds, the guards’ weapons are no longer coordinated, and the lane’s threat indicators go dark. The woman on the maintenance display leaves the opening unmistakably his to use.
“As soon as I see the opening I trip one gaurd with a leg sweep and blow his brains out with a up close shot grabbing the shard I do a no look shot to the other guard, only shooting his leg so he can tell the story, as I walk out I remeber orvin and hurry my way back but before I go I say to the woman on the display, It doesnt get any better then me”
FAILURE (Great Firearms, rolled -1)
Jostan sweeps the checkpoint officer’s legs and drops him hard. The Jimmy flashes at close range, but the shot strikes armor instead of finding a lethal opening as the officer rolls away.
Jostan snatches the authentication shard from the archive cradle. His no-look shot catches the armed buyer in the leg, forcing him behind the depot threshold, alive and shouting.
Armed Buyer 1
He took the shard! Helix, lock every route and get that display woman’s trace.
The opening collapses behind Jostan. The wounded buyer can still testify, and the officer reaches for his sidearm, but Jostan clears the lane with the shard secured and the Jimmy ready.
Avasma
Messy, but useful. The shard contains a maintenance route keyed to Orin Vale’s laboratory. Follow it before Helix seals the path.
Jostan Ordomo
It doesn’t get any better than me.
Jostan hurries into the service passage, the shard cold against his palm. Its route projection reveals a usable return corridor to Orin’s laboratory, turning the failed kill into a narrow lead and a fast escape.
Quest Complete
Retrieve the authentication shard
Skill Upgrade: Hacking Mediocre→Fair
Quest Complete
Get past the guards
Skill Upgrade: Firearms Great→Superb
+ New Item Acquired
Authentication Shard